


Of doorways and homes

by daitsukidesu



Series: Baes [13]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Kade West makes an appearance but he's pretty irrelevant, Multi, This was a Secret Santa present for Siley <3, Wayward Children AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29367354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daitsukidesu/pseuds/daitsukidesu
Summary: At age 6, Cameron was a doll.At age 8, Cameron found a door she’d never seen before.A story about doors that transcend worlds and making a home where your heart belongs.
Relationships: Mystique Flowers/Cameron Wynter, Thomas Willows/Cameron Wynter
Series: Baes [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/870333
Kudos: 1





	Of doorways and homes

**Author's Note:**

> I was sick while writing and proofreading this so um yeah

At age  **6** , Cameron was a doll.

Her mother was a famous actress, and for as long as Cameron could remember, her life had always revolved around this. From her clothes to the way she acted, her mother had long since trained her to become the perfect little trophy child. It was all she knew, yet somehow she couldn’t help but feel unsatisfied with the life she led.

Perhaps it was selfish - she was lucky, she knew. Unlike other children out there in the world, there was nothing she could possibly want. Her mother kept her well-fed, and always bought the newest clothes and fashions for Cameron to wear. If she ever wanted a new toy, all she had to do was ask for it, and it would be at the doorstep the next morning. She had nannies to take care of her, who were paid so very well that they’d let her get away with murder. She had everything she had ever wanted and more.

Except for the love and touch of a mother.

Home was miserable and lonely, you couldn’t blame Cameron for wanting for more.

* * *

At age  **8** , Cameron found a door she’d never seen before.

It was big and white with blue swirls and snowflakes decorating the entire thing. At the top of the door, written in blue cursive, were the words “Be sure”. 

Is she sure?

No, no she wasn’t. This was supposed to be the door to the library. But that door was smaller and brown-er. More vintage looking. It wasn’t this. Great majestic magical white door that looked like it came out of Elsa’s castle.

Cameron suddenly gasped, realising that this must have been a surprise from her mum. Maybe her mum wanted to give her a bit more magic in her life. They had always argued before about how stupid and childish magic was. She’d always told Cameron to grow up. Maybe she had realised that magic wasn’t silly and is apologising by giving Cameron this door?

Excited at the prospect of a present from her mother, she pushed open the door, and ran inside.

She entered into a world of ice and snow.

Cameron gasped. Did her mum turn their library into this? She grinned widely, deciding that this was the best present ever and she turned around, ready to run in through the door again and throw her arms around her mum and think her.

The door was gone, the snow it had stood on untouched.

She was surrounded by nothing but miles and miles of snowy mountains and she had absolutely no way to go home. Somehow, Cameron couldn’t find herself to be scared.

She realised now that this wasn’t something that her mother would have prepared just as a nice surprise. Her mother wouldn’t do something this elaborate unless she was about to post it to Instagram just so she could prove to her fans that she was the best mum ever and she was nowhere near right now. It wouldn’t have been something her nanny prepared also. She liked her current nanny but she knew she was only taking care of Cameron for the money. She didn’t actually like Cameron enough to prepare something like this for her.

Besides, no one knew how much Cameron secretly liked snow. Her mother found it disgusting and cold and so Cameron had to pretend she didn’t like it either.

After a moment of thought, Cameron came to the conclusion that she must be on a magical adventure; just like what Lucy had when she first came to Narnia!

Cameron grinned again and then plopped herself down onto the snow.

Oh! It was so cold and fluffy! She loved it! Cameron laughed, the bell-like sound carrying across the mountains. For a while, Cameron ran around and played, and when she got tired, she lay down in the snow, letting her body melt into the white around her.

She knew the snow was dangerous and that she should be afraid. If she stayed out here she could die, but lying here in the snow, she felt content. She didn’t want to move.

“What are you doing, little human?”

Cameron blinked, sitting up to look at the person who had spoken to her. Well, probably person. Were elves considered people? At least, she was pretty sure that the creature in front of her was an elf.

They were tall - taller than her mum and the actors that she swooned over, and they had an ethereal beauty about them that Cameron’s mum would have envied. They had long straight black hair, and the whitest, pointiest face Cameron had ever seen. Their lips were blood red, and their eyes the iciest blue Cameron had ever seen. When they spoke, it was like their voice was laced with glaciers, sending goosebumps up Cameron’s arms.

“We haven’t had a human visitor in centuries.”

Cam tilted her head, not quite understanding what they meant.

The elf raised a brow before shaking their head, almost as if they had only just realised that they were speaking to a child.

“My name is Frio. I live in the mountain over there.” They pointed to one of the mountains around them with a long, pointed finger. They offered Cameron a hesitant smile, sharp fangs peeking out of their lips, “Would you like to come with me?”

She didn’t think she had any other option so Cameron stood up, and nodded.

* * *

At age  **9** , Cameron realised that Frio was more of a parent to her than her own mum.

Frio cared for her and took care of her in a way her birth mother never did. She felt bad thinking that way, but it was the reality of the matter. 

Frio taught her about ice elves and how they lived. They taught her about the laws of the land and how they managed to make a life for themselves in this barren land of ice and snow. They told Cameron about a human’s role in this land, and they gave Cameron the freedom of a choice.

Frio told Cameron that she was brought here to be a hero. To save their people from those who wanted to destroy the ice elves way of life. There was a war brewing and Cameron was expected to fight in it. Frio had originally planned on sending Cameron to the military to train, but when they realised that Cameron was a child, they couldn’t bring themself to do it. They hid Cameron within their house instead, keeping her nice and warm and alive, and calling her Cam and treating her like they would a daughter.

Cameron kind of liked the name.

* * *

At age  **10** , Cam decided that this land was home.

The house with her mum in it was cold and empty.

This tiny cave that she lived in with Frio, despite being set deep in the mountains and being colder than the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, was warm and comfortable and filled with love.

She thought of the questions and choices that Frio had offered to her when she first came, and finally made one of her decisions. That night, when Frio came back with food from the market in a neighbouring mountain, Cam stood up and asked them to teach her how to live like an ice elf.

* * *

At age  **13** , Cam had forgotten what it felt like to be human.

The lifestyle she had led while living with Frio had changed her significantly. She had gone from being her mum’s pampered princess to a hard worker, and she couldn’t imagine herself any other way.

Through her years of climbing, harvesting, and working alongside Frio, Cam’s baby fat had melted away, making space in her face for the sharper lines of an athlete’s physique. The softness in her limbs had hardened into toned muscles. Where her skin was once unblemished and pale from never seeing the sun, it was now tanned (well, as tan as a fair skinned European could get anyway) and freckled. 

Frio had taught her to become someone who could earn her worth, and after everything her mother had raised her with, Cam taught this was the most important lesson that Frio taught her. There were other lessons too of course. Frio had taught her a bit of ice elf magic, as well as how to be an ice elf, and some of Cam’s features had changed to reflect that. Her ears had grown pointed, resembling an elf’s more than a human’s. Her nails too had lengthened and sharpened, growing almost like claws. At first, Cam had trimmed them, keeping them to the blunted roundness her mother had idealised, but whenever she looked at Frio’s long nails, she couldn’t help but feel that they were so very pretty (and useful too), and eventually, she had started keeping them long and clawed as well. 

Frio had taught her to move with the same quiet grace and strength that all winter season elves were known for. They taught her how to save her breath and how to slow her heart rate. How to keep her blood from rushing through her veins in that awfully rushed manner that humans and summer season elves had. As the years passed, Cam slowly shed the layers of wool Frio had given her. They weren’t needed anymore. She just didn’t feel the cold the way she once did.

There was ice in her veins and snow in her heart. If someone called her a human, Cam would have hissed because she really just wasn’t one.

She’s never been one.

* * *

At age  **16** , Cam lost her life once again.

Once, 11 years ago, Frio had given her the choice to be a hero. She had chosen safety, comfort, and family instead. Too bad she never really had a choice.

They had been out foraging when the blizzard struck. This wasn’t too rare an occurrence that they would have panicked or been stuck for what to do. They had been through this before multiple times and Cam and Frio were both confident that they would be safe at home soon after the storm passes.

Perhaps they had been too arrogant.

As Frio had taught her to, Cam had sat down, closing her eyes and letting herself meld into the cold of the snow. She was more ice than flesh and she was determined to survive the freezing cold the blizzard brought. She was determined to let the snow take her. Then a warm (it was so hot, burning even, Cam hadn’t felt something so painfully hot in years) hand wrapped around her arm, claws digging into her flesh.

She found herself airborne and all she could do was scream as she was once again, whisked away from her life.

* * *

At age  **16** , Cam learned the taste of blood on her blade.

It was a harpy that had taken her. A warm bird-woman hybrid. A creature of the summer court. It had taken her to the summer king’s court.

Stories Frio told her about the suffering winter season elves felt because of the summer king’s tyranny rushed through her mind. They had told her that most likely, the door had led Cam here to end his reign and return peace between the winter and summer season elves. Cam tried to convince herself that they had exaggerated. She had lived such a peaceful life, she couldn’t imagine that there was anything that wasn’t perfect about this beautiful world.

Frio had called her naive.

She now understood why.

The summer king was everything Frio had told her and worse. He held his subjects at whip’s end. Forcing them to bend to his will and torturing them if they didn’t.

Cam had asked why he had brought her here and he told her that he had heard of a human living in the winter mountains. Humans, he had said, were meant to bring the kings of summer to greater heights. They were, by lore, meant to fight by his side.

He had shown Cam around his castle, hoping to entice her into working by his side. Cam didn’t know how showing her the miserable state he kept his kingdom and its subjects in was meant to entice her. She’d never been one for power, be it in the form of money or a crown.

The king grinned, “Well then, human child, what say you? Will you work with me, and together we can rule the world.”

Too bad Cam wasn’t a human.

She drew her blade, pushing it straight through the king’s heart. His eyes widened. He fell to his knees.

Cam didn’t bother taking back her blade before she ran, trying to get out of this stupidly warm palace and back to Frio. Back to her home.

* * *

At age  **8** ( **16** ), Cam stumbled out of her library.

Cam didn’t know when she had left the world she had come to call a home and back to the treacherous lands of her childhood. All she knew was that her limbs were just suddenly short and stubby and soft and she couldn’t seem to figure out where to put her feet. She overshot her step as she left one room in the palace and came out into the hallway leading to her library. Her feet couldn’t keep up with what her brain wanted her to do and she fell face first onto the floor.

The first thing she realised was that it hurt. That fall hurt so much more than it should have. She’d long ago learned to numb her nerves, she shouldn’t feel pain to this extent.

The next thing she realised was that the floor was cold. The summer palace was warm - everything was warm from the colours to the actual feel of every single tile but this floor was cold. Why was it cold?

Why were her hands so soft?

Cam stood up. She looked down at the puffy fabric of the dress she was wearing, horror slowly dawning on her face as she started to understand what had happened. She took a look around the hallway she was stood in, pictures of her mother lining the wall.

Her heart fell into her stomach and for a moment, she felt like her blood was ice again.

* * *

At age  **9** ( **17** ), Cam finally learned to use her body again.

She was nowhere near as graceful as she wanted to be but she supposed it couldn’t be helped. She didn’t have the same build as she once did but she supposes she’ll get there with age. For now, it was enough that she was able to walk with the same quiet that Frio had taught her to have.

It drove her nannies mad that they could never hear where she was and that Cam could very easily escape their sight but this was all Cam had of her home right now and she was keeping it.

Even if that meant putting on a fake smile and forcing herself to stomp around and squeal whenever her mother wanted a show for her beloved followers.

God, why did she ever have a child? Her followers mattered more to her than her own daughter.

When Cam hugged her mother, she sometimes tried to pretend it was Frio’s arms she was wrapped in. But it wasn’t the same. Frio’s hugs were so much warmer and they were so much colder than her mother’s burning flesh.

* * *

At age  **10** ( **18** ), Cam stopped talking.

Frio had always taught her only to speak when there’s something to be said, and in this land, there was nothing for her to say. Everyone else already had far too many words. There was no need to add more nonsense into the world.

She had slowly learned to lower her pulse and her breathing. She could feel the ice forming in her veins again. Her nannies noticed that she was different but her mother didn’t.

For her mother, she continued putting on a show, smiling and putting on the airs of the perfect daughter that her mother had longed for. This suited her mother perfectly. She loved parading around her demure quiet daughter.

She got praises for raising such a perfect little lady and she revelled in it.

Cam sighed. Her eyes searched the walls around them, hoping she’d find that blue and white door that had asked her to be sure.

* * *

At age  **12** ( **20** ), Cam decided she couldn’t take it anymore.

She asked her nannies to start calling her Cam instead of Cameron. She went out and signed up for sports activities behind her mother’s back. She went out more and more. She couldn’t stand being this soft puffball of a doll her mother wanted her to be and so she dropped the act.

Her mother found out and she had scoffed.

She had called Cam as useless a child as that no good brother of hers and for the first time in three years, Cam felt her blood pulsing through her veins, rushing to her ears as she screamed at her mother.

_ (“BROTHER!? I HAVE A BROTHER!?”) _

Her mother had been displeased. And she sent Cam off to a boarding school, saying that she hoped Cam disappeared just like her brother did.

Cam dug her fingers into her palms, a tingle of electricity on her tongue as she cursed her mother as she walked away.

_ (“May you die by ice and your bones burn in the fires of Helheim.”) _

* * *

At age  **12** ( **20** ), Cam met others like her.

The school her mother sent her to was Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, and it was everything Cam thought it wouldn’t be.

It was run by a young man named Kade West, who claimed he was 50 despite only looking 20. He said it was the effect of the world he had been in, a fairyland by the name of Prism. He had explained that this school was made for people like them who had been thrown out of the worlds they made a home in and hoped to find a way back. When he realised that she had a sibling in the school by the name of Luca Belrose, he smiled and told her that he had left long ago, he had been in the woods, and then some of the other students heard a girl laughing. The last they saw of him was his back as a red haired girl pulled him through a door built into a tree. 

It had been almost cruel, Kade said, to give so many people hope in the way that Luca had when not a lot of them actually ever found their doors again the way he did. Cam could understand that. Still, she was glad her brother was safe and home, wherever his home was.

(She was grateful they never got a chance to meet. She didn’t think she could handle having to leave another family member. Losing Frio had been hard enough and she at least still had a chance to see Frio again.)

Kade had determined that she came from a world of virtue and logic. He gave her a room to share with a couple of twin siblings. One had come from a world of virtue and nonsense and one from a world of wicked and logic. He told her to come to him if she needed a change of wardrobe to something more suited to her and told her that if she wanted to change her room, he could accommodate that as well.

He left her with Tom and Myst, and they smiled and waved and returned to what they were doing, completely ignoring her.

That suited her fine.

* * *

At age  **13** ( **21** ), Cam became best friends with the twins.

It was inevitable really. They shared a room and every waking and sleeping moment together and they shared everything with each other.

Myst was the older twin, she came from a fairyland. They had taught her magic and given her wings. They had taught her how to fly and they brought joy and nonsense into her life with their sugar and songs. She was loving and caring always with a kind word for anyone around her. Cam didn’t always understand her but she was always happy and smiling that Cam found she didn’t care. That was simply the nature of nonsense, she supposed.

Tom had come from a world of warlock whose rules were ‘wicked’ and ‘cruel’ and ‘inhumane’ but whose strictness to stick to everything to the letter worked perfectly for him. He was meticulous and thoughtful. Everything he did, he did with a plan in mind. He wasn’t the most well-liked at school due to what he’s willing to do as a warlock, but he always had a gentle smile for Cam and she found that she couldn’t hate him. His world may be wicked but he certainly wasn’t.

They knew about Cam and her world of ice and snow. They helped her build back everything she had lost and sooner than she realised, she found she was once more walking with the grace and strength she once had. There was a different set of freckles on her skin - the sun here worked so very differently than the sun back home but that was fine. Cam finally learned to quiet her heart and breath to the point she once had. Her nails didn’t grow naturally clawed like they once did, but Myst helped her to shape them that way, filing her nails down until they were sharp enough to kill.

She slowly learned to live with ice and snow in her veins again, and though she could never truly grow to become an ice elf in this world as she had in her own, Cam found herself starting to feel joy again.

* * *

At age  **15** ( **23** ), Cam realised she was in love.

Her friendship with the twins had been so calm and easy she didn’t know when she had fallen for them but fall she had. Between Myst’s hugs and Tom’s pats, she found herself giving her heart away.

Thank God, none of them came from a world where monogamy was really the norm. They were more than happy to adjust their relationship to their new found feelings.

* * *

At age  **17** ( **25** ), Tom and Myst graduated.

They were a year older than Cam and at 18, they knew their doors would never voluntarily open for them again. They were fine with it. There was a tiredness in their smiles that Cam had slowly started feeling in her own bones, but they knew this was their fate. They could build a home (or as close to one) in this world if they needed.

They had each other, they could learn to be content.

Cam felt a heaviness in her chest as she hugged the twins before they left. She only had one more year before she too had to start forcing herself to fully live in this world. She didn’t think she could. This wasn’t home. It just wasn’t.

Tom and Myst were lovely and they were as close to home as she had found but they weren’t truly home. As much as she loved them, her heart never truly belonged to them. It fully and wholeheartedly belonged to a far colder world.

Myst laughed suddenly, her joy akin to a tinkle of bells in the air. Cam looked up at her in confusion, and she grinned brightly. Cam couldn’t help but wonder again about the sharp fangs that Myst still had, a permanent reminder of her true home.

“Cammie, I love you,” Myst smiled, a hand gently cupping Cam’s cheek, “I really do. But you know, I truly wish I never see you again.”

Cam blinked up at her in confusion. Myst only laughed again, and Cam looked up at Tom, her question clear in her eyes. Tom’s laughter joined Myst’s, and though she really didn’t understand their joy in this moment, Cam made sure to file this happy sound away into her memories. She never wanted to forget it.

Tom leaned forward to press a gentle kiss to her lips. There was a jolt of electricity where their skin met - a remnant of the magic running through his veins. He reached up to ruffle her hair, face still too close for her to see him properly as he smiled.

“Be happy,” he murmured against her lips. She felt his hands on her shoulders and before she realised it, he was pushing her backwards.

The last she ever saw of the twins were their smiles as they waved her goodbye, and Cam fell into a world of ice and snow.

* * *

At age  **17** ( **25** ), Cam became an ice elf again.

It was what she always was. Ice ran through her veins in place of blood and she had never truly been a little human girl. She had just always been an elf, unfortunately born into the wrong world.

It hadn’t taken her long to make her way back to Frio’s home. The older elf had smiled and opened her arms for a hug. They knew that she had left the moment they heard the summer king had been killed. They had been waiting for her ever since.

Cam looked as if she hadn’t aged a day since the day she left, (Frio didn’t think she’d really age that much ever again,) but she looked different. Still, it was the same Cam that came back and they both couldn’t be happier for it.

They fell into the cot they had always shared and told stories of how their worlds had changed and treated them. They told stories far into the night, and for the first time in years, Cam finally felt happy.

* * *

At age  **26** , Cam was home.

She stood in front of a mirror, comparing the differences in her appearance this time around. Her ears were less pointed, and her claws had never truly gotten as sharp as they once were without filing. The freckles from her days with Frio were gone, replaced by freckles from days with Tom and Myst. Her scars were different too. She had lost all the scars from her adventures with Frio. There was no longer a cut on her hip or scratches on her arms from terrible bramble bushes (though those would come back soon she was sure). They had instead been replaced by the bite marks on her shoulders where Myst had forgotten that she had fangs, and the small burn marks on her waist and arms from Tom’s electric mishaps. She had once kept her hair long to match with Frio’s, but with Myst and Tom, she learned that short hair was just far easier to maintain. Her lips would never be as red as a true ice elf’s, her skin would never be as pale and her hair would never be as black but she was close enough.

The girl who came back was not exactly the same as the girl who left, but somehow Cam was grateful for it.

Her experiences with Frio and her experiences with Myst and Tom made her who she was and who she was is the happiest version of her she could hope to be.

Her world may be one of logic and virtue, but there was just a bit of wickedness in her heart from Tom’s influence and just a bit of nonsense from Myst’s. Somehow, knowing them had made her even more perfect for her world than she was before.

She heard Frio call her name. Cam quickly buttoned up her tunic, thinking once more of the twins. She had told Frio about them, and Frio had quickly realised that Cam loved them. Cam only smiled. She loved them, she truly did, and they’ll always have a special place in her heart.

But as she had realised a year before, they weren’t home. Frio and this world of ice and snow was.

Frio called her name again and Cam laughed, calling out that she was coming.

Here in this world, she was content. 

She was happy.

She was home.


End file.
